April/May 1983 RAIN Page 21 Attic Solar Greenhouse Responsible Urban Neighborhood Technology was given an abandoned house by the City of Portland in a low income neighborhood to be renovated as a community model of integrated energy self-reliance and food production. Renovation of the building began in February 1981. Now nearly completed with the help of many volunteers, the Eliot Energy House has been weatherized, and a wood stove and a solar hot-water system have been installed. Like many older two- or three-story homes built close to one another, the Eliot Energy House’s south side is shaded by a neighboring building. The organization resolved this problem by designing an attic greenhouse for passive solar heating and year-round growing. Grant funding is allowing greenhouse monitoring to determine optimal temperatures, adaptable plant types, and amount of heat that would be diverted to the house. Monitoring data are expected to be published by the spring of 1984. The project also calls for community education on solar energy and the growing techniques being demonstrated at the house. Outreach and extensive media coverage brought over 150 people to the Grand Opening of the greenhouse. Three greenhouse gardening workshops have been conducted. Topics have included starting seeds, methods for extending the growing season, and transplanting. In the fall. Energy House staff will work with Portland Community College to teach a hands-on, ten week course in greenhouse gardening. The Eliot Energy House is often included in city-wide tours of notable solar energy applications. The next phase for the project includes extensive use of the site to educate elementary, junior high, and high school students and community groups. In addition, it will serve as an urban food production and renewable energy information and demonstration center. (Eliot Energy House, 3117 N. Williams, Portland, OR 97212) Water heater and plant starts in attic greenhouse at the Eliot Energy House. Backyard Organic Gardens Coos Bay is no gardener’s paradise. The coastal soil is sandy or silt loam, spring and summer winds keep temperatures below 70, and continual winter, spring, and fall rains limit sunlight. Eleanor Knapp’s Home Garden Company confronts these problems routinely. The Home Garden Company received funding from the A.T. Small Grants program to experiment with organic gardening techniques most suitable to local conditions and to expand local use of intensive gardening practices. Knapp helped four families prepare, plant, and improve backyard gardens. With her assistance, one family located their garden adjacent to the house’s light colored south side for reflection, and constructed an eight-foot high fence around the site for wind protection. These improvements raised the temperature 10 to 15 degrees around the plants. Eleanor Knapp rototilling her organic gardens. At another site, the family increased compost temperature and reduced nutrient leaching from rain by covering the pile and locating it under an eave. Two other compost systems did not accumulate enough organic wastes to be useful. This was largely due to inaccessibility; they were sited at too great a distance from the kitchen in order to keep them out of the neighbor’s view. "For success, esthetic reasons for locating compost often have to take a back seat to practical reasons; it’s important to talk with your neighbors,” concludes Knapp. Knapp’s grant also called for the construction of solar food dryers. Of the two constructed, the one mounted with a vertical steel shaft inside a pipe works best. With this method, the dryer is easily rotated to face directly into the sun. Knapp also held five free workshops in Coos Bay, reaching over 70 people. She taught composting, mulching, companion planting, winter gardening, soil preparation, and how best to use raised beds. She also handed out 250 fact sheets on these topics at a local Self-Reliance Fair last June. Knapp hopes to build on the community’s new gardening awareness with a seed exchange set up at the local food co-op. Many persons cannot affort to pay for a gardening consultant. Knapp has consequently broadened her business, now calling it Home, Hearth, and Garden. Along with her consulting work, custom tilling, and workshops, Knapp hopes to sell organic fertilizers, biological pest controls, seedlings, tools, and insulated window shades. "Because of the gardening efforts enabled by the grant,” Knapp explained, "there is now a lot of communication in the community about organic gardening.” (Eleanor Knapp, 1425 Stock Slough Road, Coos Bay, OR 97420) OAT
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